Earlier this year, Pagan Fortress made a limited run of tapes of Cave Mouth’s third album, Daughters of the North. I can say, proud as a peacock, that they all sold out.
But, my best friend (and probably the most gifted and wisest man I know) Nafre,* who lives in the Canadian Arctic, did a very special photoshoot with his copy of the tape, some beautiful whale bones and one of his wondrous sculptures. He also wrote up a magnificent review of the album.
I have to share the pictures and review them with you because it would be a legitimate sin not to. As well as my music, Nafre has physical copies of my books and photos in the Arctic. To know that things I’ve made are so far north, where Nanuq wanders, a place which has inspired so much of what I’ve done with my creative work and my life overall is greatly astonishing to me, and profoundly humbling.
*Nafre created the calligraphy for the album and re-vamped our logo. He also inked some art which will be used when we release the album on CD later in 2022.
A note in Nafre’s words about the photos: the images were taken at new Iqaluit municipal cemetery in Niaqunngut (Apex), where stands, almost as a gateway to the sea, two massive jaw-bones from the last bowhead whale hunt and harvest in 2018. The statuette is of Takankapsaaluk/Sedna.
ENTER THE CAVE MOUTH (( )) My sister of Blizzards, Katie Metcalfe, and her partner in the Wyrd, Meghan Wood (@crownofasteria, IARNVIDJUR, HEKSEBRANN, etc.), have a new release out on cassette, « Daughters of the North » (PAGAN FORTRESS, 2022; originally released in darkest December, 2021). It’s already sold out—but you can listen to these chilling hymnals and foreboding recitals here.
These be wild poetical meditations with musical teeth, which do tear at the mind and crush the bone, transmitting true revelations that the female divine is indeed present, powerful and really fucking angry. Lo! And heed… Of course, ANYTHING Katie and Meghan do is a Black Metal shaman’s delight; but what is absolutely fucking exciting, is that the Inuit goddess SEDNA is given her vicious due through a most stirring homage. Be still, my wuthering heart! A tempest starts now… – Nafre
Celebrating the strange and the shadowy, the damned and unseen 